In assembling a substrate such as a circuit board or chip on which conductive paths have been formed with connecting elements in the nature of terminal clips, it has been known to provide a small quantity of solder at each point where a terminal clip or connector makes contact with a conductive area ("contact pad") on the substrate, so that a good electrical path may be established upon heating to melt the solder. Several specifically different ways of attaching small solder masses at the appropriate points are disclosed in Seidler U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,648 and patents cited therein. In such prior terminal clips or connectors the means for attaching each solder mass comprises a flat finger of thin metal stamped out of a blank and bent tightly around a section of solder wire, which latter is usually cut to form a small cylindrical slug. A flat surface of the blank, in the area where it is formed as a finger, bears against the solder slug and the solder, upon being melted, must flow initially across a cut edge surface of the blank. The axis of the solder has, customarily, extended parallel to the plane of the flat metal blank.
With the trend toward miniaturization of circular-bearing substrates, it has become important to provide terminal clips and connectors which can be arranged in close lateral proximity to each other and a step in that direction is disclosed in Seidler application Ser. No. 230,907, filed Feb. 2, 1981, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,910 where each terminal element is constituted by a finger which by longitudinal folding retains sufficient material to be adequately conductive and self-sustaining while being narrowed.